Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart says the new coaching staff has focused on his decision-making when he runs—learning when the risk is worth it, especially after sitting out two games last year. Dart also detailed new work on his physique to handle NFL-style hit
By the time Jaxson Dart sat down with reporters on a Friday afternoon, the conversation wasn’t headed toward presidential politics—it circled back to a more immediate football question: what happens when the Giants quarterback tucks the ball and runs.
Dart, a second-year signal-caller, said the new coaching staff has been drilling the same theme—staying smart with his body. He pointed to early meetings with quarterbacks coach Brian Callahan. where they pulled up his tape and walked through situations. step by step. The focus, Dart said, was weighing whether a run is worth the risk in that specific moment.
“It’s important for the quarterback to make sure that how he’s feeling one play. that he’s going to feel that same way the next play. ” Dart explained. He tied that directly to what he learned from last season, when he sat out two games. “I just hated that time of not being out there with my teammates. ” he said. adding that he understands the stakes of being available.
At the center of the balancing act is competitiveness. Dart pushed back on the idea that being more careful would dull him.
“My competitiveness isn’t gonna change at all,” he said. “I think just, like I said, it just goes into situationally, just what times it’s worth it, what times it’s not. And just making those mature decisions.”
The Giants quarterback also discussed how he’s preparing his body to take the kind of contact that comes with NFL football. He said he’s not planning a dramatic change from his current weight, but he believes he’s getting leaner and that the strength staff has done “an amazing job.”
“I think that I’m just leaner,” Dart said. “Our strength staff has done an amazing job.”
He doesn’t want to become a different kind of quarterback. Dart said he won’t be “like Tim Tebow” when it comes to bulking up. What he wants instead is to keep—or improve—the part of his game that lets him move.
“I think that I’m probably the most mobile that I’ve been in my career right now,” Dart said, pointing to his hips and the way his upper and lower body work together when he throws. “Just my hips and the disassociation from my upper body to my lower body being able to make throws,” he said.
But staying in the best shape he’s been in carries a second challenge that Dart acknowledged: controlling the edge that makes quarterbacks run in the first place. The work now becomes deciding. play by play. how far to push it—when to get out of bounds. when to slide. and when to throw the ball away instead of forcing something.
Dart’s message was clear from the start: he wants to be on the field more than he was last year. To do that, he’s trying to turn instinct into judgment—one run at a time, with the risk calculated before the decision is made.
Jaxson Dart New York Giants Brian Callahan quarterback training NFL hits mobility competitiveness mature decisions out of bounds slide throw away